Two Hunts Collide
by DoomStone
Summary: A rogue predator touches down in the middle of one of Artemis' hunts. What happens when it deems the hunters as worthy prey?


**Two Hunts Collide**

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Predator or Green Day, Guns 'n' Roses, Def Leppard, The Killers, War, Arch Enemy, The Used, or Disturbed. Whew.

**Chapter 1: First Encounter**

It was a cold, cloudless night in a dense forest deep in the state of Montana. If you'd looked into the night sky, you'd have seen a full moon in all its glory. But nobody was looking, or even around when what seemed to be a meteorite passed in front of the moon and crashed onto the surface of the planet. If someone had clocked the object, they would have realized that when it hit the ground, it wasn't travelling at terminal velocity. The object, now on the ground and smoking hot, opened up and a strange, humanoid creature emerged from within. The creature was enormous, at about 7 feet in height.

It was wearing a strange type of armor on its arms and lower legs. Under that armor, it wore a suit of netting. Its face was covered by a metal mask. On the mask were two "eyes" and a small laser targeting system that when lit, pointed 3 small red dots onto whatever it was aiming at. The weapon for this targeting system was a plasma-caster that was currently folded snugly against the creature's back. Emerging from this creature's head were tentacle-like appendages that resembled human dreadlocks.

The creature surveyed its surroundings, seeing nothing but heat signatures from inside its mask. When it finished examining its surroundings, it emitted a deafening roar that would be heard for miles. And it was…

**O . O . O . O . O**

As it turns out, 6 miles away, the Greek goddess of the hunt and the moon, Artemis, and her huntresses were conducting a ceremony to mark the beginning of their annual hunting competition. In this competition, the huntresses would arrange themselves into groups of four and compete against each other, with Artemis as the referee, to see who could take down the most monsters. This competition would last for one complete lunar cycle, or, in other words, from one full moon to the next. And now, as Artemis conducted the ceremony, those 30 days of competitive hunting would begin anew.

"Huntresses," called out Artemis to her competing teams, beckoning them over to the fire, "tonight, we participate in an ancient tradition that has spanned for millennia. The Annual Lunar Hunt. This year, Apollo has decided that we are to have a theme. Our theme is contemporary music. Each team has chosen their leader and I will name each team. So, our competing teams are: Green Day, led by Thalia; Guns 'n' Roses, led by Phoebe; Def Leppard, led by Rebecca; The Killers, led by Dorothy; War, led by Christine; Arch Enemy, led by Maya; The Used, led by Dana; and finally, Disturbed, led by Khara. I wish you all the greatest of luck, and with this final blessing, we part ways: May your arrows fly straight and true. Now, let the hunt begin!"

The groups then began to cheer, but were interrupted by a deafening roar blasting out from an area of the mountains not 6 miles from where they were standing. Each group, shrugging off the roar as just some other monster, quickly repacked their things and moved out in different directions. This time, they were not dressed in their usual fatigues, seeing as this month was predicted to be one of the hottest months of the year. So, they were all dressed in olive green leggings and black t-shirts. Over that, they wore dark green, beak-hooded tunics with no sleeves. Team leaders each had a crescent moon embroidered on a flap that hangs over the left arm.

**O . O . O . O . O**

The creature roamed the forest, unseen and undetected. It prowled through the undergrowth, searching for suitable prey when it detected several groups of large and small heat signatures. With a series of anticipatory clicks, it took off in that direction. It arrived at a small clearing, where several enormous dog-like creatures were sniffing around.

On the other side of the clearing, it picked up the heat signatures of a group of 4 much smaller species. Through the Heads-Up-Display in its mask, it identified these 4 as humans and, judging by their heart rates, female. This fact roused its curiosity. But what made it even more curious was that they seemed to be holding weapons. Some sort of primitive projectile weapon consisting of an arced rod with a string that would fire extremely short spear-like things.

It watched as this group slowly raised their weapons from their concealed spot and wondered how they were going to kill 11 of these enormous hounds by themselves. Then, a single word escaped the lips of one A command that, when filtered through the mask, was distorted through all sorts of pitches and speeds," Fire!"

**O . O . O . O . O**

"Fire!" yelled Khara, releasing her arrow in tandem with the rest of her group, Disturbed. Each carefully and meticulously aimed arrow struck its intended target, taking down 4 Hellhounds in a single volley. The remaining Hellhounds, spooked because of their friends' deaths and the sudden sound, formed a circle facing all directions.

'_Perfect._' Thought Khara. But just as she was about to give the order for the group to attack the remaining Hellhounds, a blue light burst out of the opposite side of the clearing, blowing a hole in the head of an unlucky Hellhound who, mysteriously, didn't dissipate into golden dust. It simply fell over, clearly dead.

Then the group of huntresses watched as a transparent shape jumped out of the trees and landed in the center of the of the Hellhounds' circle. Upon closer examination, the shape, even if it was transparent, was slightly distorted around its edges, creating a somewhat-silhouette. They then lost sight of it. They were about to attack when a pair of razor-sharp blades erupted from the neck of the nearest Hellhound, spilling black blood all over the place and severing its head from its body, which fell to the ground as the head was held aloft. The blades retracted into what seemed to be the arm of the silhouette from earlier. Then, with the hand that wasn't holding the head, it drew a disc-like object and quickly threw it at another Hellhound.

As the silhouette attached the head to its belt, the object began to whir and soon, it was being guided towards another Hellhound via laser pointer-like thing while the previous Hellhound's head fell off of its shoulders, revealing a clean and fatal slice. 5 more Hellhounds were killed in this fashion.

The last Hellhound, the biggest, seemed totally confused. That was until the killer shape finally dropped its camouflage and picked the Hellhound up by the throat.

**O . O . O . O . O**

The creature held its prey by the throat, obviously delighted by the unrestrained terror in its eyes as they stared into his own. Extending its wrist-blades, it gave off its species' signature clicks, and stabbed the Hellhound through the chest, killing it instantly. It retracted its blades and picked up the body.

**O . O . O . O . O**

The huntresses watched in abject horror as the creature thrust its hand violently into the Hellhound's corpse and pulled out its spine and skull with a deafening roar. Then, a younger huntress towards the back of the group did the worst thing you can ever do when hiding; little Valerie gasped. The creature's head whipped to their direction. It looked right at them for 3 seconds, and then faded into the background. The last they saw of it was its eyes flash before it disappeared. Ten minutes later, the huntresses emerged from their hiding spot and collected their trophies, all shaken from their terrifying experience. Little Valerie then happened to look up into a taller tree by the edge of the clearing and screamed. When the other 3 huntresses arrived to see what had happened, poor little Valerie was quaking in fear.

"Valerie, what happened?" asked Khara. Valerie didn't speak, but simply put up a shaking hand and pointed at the tree's canopy. When Khara looked at the spot, she immediately wished she hadn't. What she saw was the Hellhound, tied by its back legs to a thick branch, totally skinless. The young huntress screamed.

**O . O . O . O . O**

The creature returned to its pod, proud of its first trophies. It grabbed the first hound's head and placed it on a table. The other hound's spine and skull were soon placed next to it. The creature then proceeded to strip off the meat from the first hound's head until it was just a skull and some loose, dangling spine. Then, it extracted the brains and other tissues from inside of the skull. When this gruesome deed was done, the creature reached for another tool and flash-bleached both skulls and the spine, which were then all mounted on stakes. The creature then re-equipped itself and left once more to satisfy its growing bloodlust.

**O . O . O . O . O**

Anna inhaled slowly, and then exhaled. She pressed her cheek to her hand, which was holding a knocked arrow as she steadily corrected her aim towards the sleeping, oversized wild boar. Her grip on her arrow loosened slightly and she exhaled again, about to take the shot, when another arrow flew from another side of the clearing, striking the boar. As it turned to dust, Anna noticed a person walking out of the foliage and immediately recognized her.

"Ya know somethin', Christine," stated Anna as she too walked out of the foliage, "it's not very nice to take someone else's prey. Not nice at all. Especially considering that I'd been aiming my shot for almost 10 minutes."

"Well I'm sorry I didn't know," replied Christine, rudely imitating Anna's Texan accent, "Then I coulda done it on purpose." Christine bent over, picked up the leftover tusk, and gave Anna the fakest smile ever. Anna scowled back and was still scowling when Christine left and the rest of her teammates arrived. Rebecca, the team leader, noticed her scowling and asked, "Okay, what happened?"

"Christine happened," stated Anna bluntly, "She stole my shot. Obnoxious little bi-" SNAP "-What was that?" They all looked around, bows drawn and waiting to be used. "Must've been the wind or something," said Orianna. They had no idea…

**O . O . O . O . O**

Christine was watching through the forest, humming while looking for the rest of her group when she heard a soft thud off to her left. She stopped and called out, "Hello?" Then she heard a low buzz and the bushes behind her rustled. She whirled around to see what had caused the noise, but was met with nothing but darkness. She looked up at the moon and groaned. She really hated dark places. They made her skin crawl. Either way, she got on her hands and knees and crawled over to the bushes. After spending a while groping around in there, she gave up and continued on her way to her team's campsite. When she arrived, the site was in shambles.

"Oh my gods!" she exclaimed, "What the Hades happened here?" Then, across the camp, she heard Anna's voice repeat what she had been told earlier, "It's not very nice to take someone else's prey." Now, Christine was beyond pissed off. Add that to several weeks of stress preparing for this event and you could practically feel the killer intent radiating off of her skin. Christine made her way to the opposite end of her torn-up camp, thinking, _'How DARE she! How dare Anna ransack MY camp!'_

When she arrived, her blood ran cold and her face paled in horror. Because right before her eyes, hanging upside-down limply from a huge tree, were the totally skinless bodies of whom she assumed were the other members of her team, mouths forever frozen open in silent screams. To her utmost terror, she again heard Anna's statement, this time from above her and to her right, "Not nice at all."

This time, though, as she paid closer attention to the voice, she noticed that it came out slightly distorted, as if it was recorded, messed around with, and then replayed. She looked in the direction of the voice and gasped when she saw a black, humanoid shape silhouetted against the moon watching her intently. She then regained control over her senses and ran for her life in the opposite direction, the creature trailing not far behind her.

As she ran, she screamed out, "Help! Help me, somebody, please!" soon realizing that no one could hear her screaming, she started to cry, sobbing to herself, "I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!" All of a sudden, white-hot pain ripped its way up her body from below. She cried out in complete agony as a blue blast struck her right leg, blowing a hole in it that cauterized immediately and causing her to fall forwards.

From there, she began to crawl, obviously in pain. She panicked when she heard heavy footsteps coming towards her. In a sudden moment of clarity, she remembered the boar tusk and quickly pulled it out, ready to attack. When whatever-it-was was finally next to her, she stabbed it in the leg, earning a pained roar. She then crawled 3 more meters away before flipping over to see what she had accomplished. She saw the creature in full light, with the extracted tusk in its hand, which was wet with a neon-green goop. She then turned over and tried to crawl away some more, but let out a blood-curdling scream when her left ankle was grabbed and continued as she was dragged away, her fingers making trails in the soil as she tried to grasp it.


End file.
